International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights

30^th Meeting (AM)

STATES PARTIES TO COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS ELECT

 

ELIzABETH PALM OF SWEDEN TO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE

 

The twenty-fourth meeting of the States parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights this morning elected prominent Swedish jurist and human rights expert Elizabeth Palm to the Human Rights Committee, the body charged with monitoring worldwide implementation of the Covenant’s objectives.

Ms. Palm was elected to replace Margareta Wadstein (Sweden), who died on 17 September 2004.  Ms. Palm will finish out Ms. Wadstein’s term, which was to have concluded on 31 December 2008.

[Ms. Palm’s curriculum vitae is annexed to a note by the Secretary-General to the States Parties, dated 10 December 2004, and issued as document CCPR/SP/65.]

The other 17 members of the Committee are:  Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo (Benin); Edwin Ramon Johnson Lopez (Ecuador); Ahmed Tawfik Khalil (Egypt); Rajsoomer Lallah (Mauritius); Michael O’Flaherty (Ireland); Rafael Rivas Posada (Colombia); Nigel Rodley (United Kingdom); Ivan Shearer (Australia); Abdelfattah Amor (Tunisia); Nisuke Ando (Japan); Prafullachandra N. Bhagwati (India); Alfredo Castillero Hoyos (Panama); Christine Chanet (France); Walter Kalin (Switzerland); Hipolito Solari-Yrigoyen (Argentina); Ruth Wedgwood (United States); and Roman Wieruszewski (Poland).

Part of the United Nations human rights machinery, the Covenant was adopted in December 1966 and came into force in March 1976.  The implementation of this instrument and its Protocols in the territory of States parties is monitored by the Human Rights Committee, which was established for that purpose.  That body is composed of 18 independent experts who are persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights.

Opening the meeting, Bacre Waly-Ndiaye, Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, informed participants of developments since the States parties’ last meeting in September 2004, including the eighty-second session of the Human Rights Committee last October-November.  The session adopted concluding observations on five country reports and 18 final decisions under the Optional Protocol, which authorizes the Committee to consider complaints about violations of the rights set forth in the Covenant from individuals under its States parties’ jurisdiction.

On 28 October, the Committee had held its third meeting with States Parties to the Covenant, which was attended by representatives of some 64 countries, he said.  The meeting included a thorough discussion on the Committee’s experience in dealing with the situation of States parties which had not reported under the Covenant, and on the requests for interim measures of protection, as well as established procedures for following up on the Committee’s concluding observations and its views under the Optional Protocol.

Finally, he said that the Committee had pursued a process of consultation on the proposals on treaty body reform contained in the Secretary-General’s report on further reform of the United Nations system.  Those consultations would continue at the Committee’s forthcoming eighty-third session to be held in New York next month.

At the opening of the meeting, Judith Mbula Bahemuka, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations, was elected by acclamation as its Chairperson.  She said she was honoured, and that she would work with all States parties to ensure that the meeting’s mandate would be carried out.

The Meeting also elected three Vice-Chairpersons from among the representatives of States parties to the Covenant:  Elizabeta Gjorgjieva (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Clotilde Ferry (Monaco), and Carlos Jose Ruckelshaussen Villarejo (Paraguay).

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